Les élections européennes, 40 ans après
This work, which was published in the collection “Études parlementaires”, brings together a number of contributions (in French or English) derived from the work of an international colloquium held at the University of Bordeaux on 9 and 10 May 2019, 40 years after the first European elections by direct universal suffrage. These contributions retrace institutional developments and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the European Parliament within the European political system. This analysis devotes much room to the political challenges represented by populism, attacks on the rule of law and the crisis of confidence that is affecting Western democracies. It also looks at the role of the European Parliament in areas such as police cooperation in criminal matters, economic and monetary governance and asylum and migration.
“The European Parliament must play, can play and does play a role by reconciling the preferences of the European citizens who are its electorate. It is not completely exclusive in its claims to represent them, but its direct election gives it a legitimacy that is unique in the hybrid European constitutional order”, stresses Léonard Besselink (University of Amsterdam), a lecturer in constitutional law (our translation throughout). Examining the concept of the European elections as part of a “process of creating an ever-closer union between the peoples of Europe”, Laurence Potvin-Solis (University of Caen) analyses the relationship between the European elections and the national identity of the member states, stressing that progress towards a genuine Europeanisation of the electoral system continues at a very slow pace.
Although some of the authors lament the reluctance of the member states to give the European Parliament a greater role, others are far more critical of the parliamentary institution. One such is Romain Tinière, a lecturer in public law at the University of Grenoble-Alpes, who examines the contradictions between the official positions taken by the Parliament in favour of fundamental rights and the votes cast in the framework of legislative proceedings, particularly those concerning the 2006 directive on data preservation and the 2008 directive on returns of third-country nationals residing irregularly in Europe. “The constraints upon its scope for action are obviously not the same when it makes use of resolutions and reports in the framework of its monitoring and early-warning function and when it participates in the normative process in the framework of its duties of defining the fundamental rights”, Tinière nonetheless acknowledges, before adding that “perhaps the time has come for the white knight of human rights in Europe to make room for a Parliament that is less concerned by discourse and more concerned by action in favour of the effective protection of the fundamental rights in Europe”.
Diane Fromage (University of Maastricht) writes critically of the Spitzenkandidaten procedure, which she considers inappropriate, particularly because it can create expectations and end in failure, as was the case in 2019. The author also challenges the idea of transnational lists, among other reasons because they could lead to a situation of two classes of MEPs. Fromage goes on to make the case for creating a second chamber (or a third, if the Council can be considered as such) made up of delegates from the national parliaments, to reduce misunderstandings between members of the national and European parliaments. Her line of argument is not without its weaknesses, but it is all part of a debate that will doubtless resurface in the work of the Conference on the Future of Europe. (Olivier Jehin)
Tony Marguery, Sébastien Platon and Hanneke van Eijken. Les élections européennes, 40 ans après – Bilan, enjeux et perspectives. Bruylant. ISBN: 978-2-8027-6541-7. 490 pages. €60,00
Réinventer les aurores
With a painting by Pierre Soulages for its cover and an invitation to recreate the world for its title, this book is alluring before the reader even opens it. It was well worth opening and reading it, although its plea for fraternity and new hope would, in my view, have benefited from being aimed beyond the borders of France where the country’s Chief Rabbi, Haïm Korsia, shows to keep it.
In this “ode to the political, moral and spiritual outre-noir” of our times, poetry, topical subjects, a return to biblical images and Talmudic wisdom all rub shoulders. “Outre-noir”, or beyond darkness, refers to the “kingdom of light here below, which we should not expect but create”, Rabbi Korsia tells us, adding: “at the point at which we can no longer see anything, there arises the possibility to light torches and stars. At the point at which we think that the darkness will win out, there arises the very desire to cross it, embrace it and transform it”. Because “there is a path which turns its back on renunciation, which dares to speak of intelligence and joy, and even enchantment, and when faced with all the major questions our society raises these days, it is possible to hope, compulsory to dream and advisable to talk to each other to re-gain our ability to invent new possibilities”. This path, the author explains, takes us through dialogue in full respect of all parties and, more importantly, through “each individual’s reappropriation of his or her power over public action”, a pre-requisite for democracy.
“Whatever the unfortunate declinists who play their little music in books and interviews may have to say on the matter, the world, which is admittedly not doing too well at the moment, is not doing any worse either, overall. As always, men and women are fighting, using their resources, to transform society, and we can be proud of them. But leading the way to happier tomorrows does not involve spending time and words on nostalgia for a past shot through with simple rhetoric and tragic bitterness, quite the reverse”, Korsia states. He goes on to issue a warning: “we should be very wary of this ‘reactionary’ temptation in the purest sense of the word: although it is sometimes certainly the right thing to do to conserve anything that reflects values, civilisation and hope, if conditions, history and memory root us in more fertile soil, this is always because we agree to grow there, to allow new, previously unknown, and then unthinkable, plants, new ideas, new possibilities, to be born and to flourish”.
“Political communication can no more take the place of political action than a trailer can take the place of a film, or a catchphrase can take the place of a poem. People want to see the trailer, people want to read a banner announcing the event, but only as long as an adventure follows and everybody takes part in it. Our society, with its diet of laminated paper, tweets, saturated with grandiloquent and contradictory announcements and endlessly buffeted between news and fake news, confronts its worst enemy, an enemy within: impatience. Our mirror constantly shows us terrifying images, disaster is always imminent, real life seems to be a patchwork of flashes that blind us so much that we can no longer see the bigger picture, make out the fabric, appreciate its softness and subtlety”, Korsia argues, filling many pages with calls for greater efforts to fight racism and anti-Semitism, to defend laity as the framework of existence for the freedom of religion, a better policy of integration for persons of foreign origin, a responsible use of natural resources, which is merely on loan to each generation, and for more decentralisation and less standardisation.
The conclusion applies to our lockdown regimes and is universally applicable: “from any trial we survive, hope is the possible sign of another future, which it is up to us to desire, imagine, bring about – through words and through action, in a spirit of sharing and of trust. The darkness is always deepening, not to swallow us whole, but to make us cross, albeit on the most fragile vessels, the cares of today and the doubts of tomorrow”. (OJ)
Haïm Korsia. Réinventer les aurores. Fayard. ISBN: 978-2-213-71300-7. 206 pages. €17,00
Techno-féodalisme
With this work, economist Cédric Durand, lecturer at the University Paris XIII, explores the techno-feudalist hypothesis that the changes brought about by the digitalisation of the world are leading to a major neo-feudalist regression. Under the surface of the myths put about by the “Californian ideology”, such as the sharing of information and knowledge, the acceleration of exchange and innovation, autonomy, mobility or the promise of shared prosperity, the author lays bare the actual effects of globalisation in the hands of the digital giants (GAFAM) and various States, principally China.
“In the warehouses of Amazon or Lidl, at the desks of call centres, in the cabs of road haulage drivers or at supermarket checkouts, information technologies allows people to make unproductive time into productive time, to place new requirements on workers and to deploy surveillance instruments that greatly encroach on their privacy”, observes Durand, painting a picture of the accelerated dehumanisation of labour (our translation throughout).
“After the Second World War and the Nuremberg trials, enlightened consent was presented as one of the technical pre-requisites for experimentation on human subjects. In the framework of online experiments, however, this principle is largely swept aside, as consent is usually extorted via general terms of use of platforms approved when signing up. In the digital age, massification of experience and extension of control are two sides of the same coin. If, in the 19th century, there was a profound de facto affinity between experimental knowledge and the power of the disciplinary institutions, we can say that in the 20th, the development of online experimentation was associated with total powers of surveillance”, stresses the author in a scathing analysis of digital capitalism and the exploitation of Big Data.
“The Chinese social credit system is more than just a techno-Maoist curiosity, a repulsive figure that can be comfortably blamed on the authoritarian nature of the regime. In the age of algorithms, an increasing number of more or less centralised, more or less automatic and more or less transparent evaluation systems are becoming a horizontal problem”, argues Durand, stressing that the same questions – Who designs these systems? What is their purpose? What is their effect? – are applicable “equally to the Chinese social credit system and to the many administrative and commercial evaluation mechanisms that have developed in Western societies”.
Having described the feudalist structure and reiterated the interdependence and control relationships that characterise serfdom, the author states that “the major digital services are inescapable fiefs”. He adds: “this situation of dependence of subordinate subjects on the digital serfs is vital, as it determines the capacity of the dominant parties to direct the economic surplus towards themselves. The theoretical model corresponding to this configuration in which dependence and control of the surplus go hand in hand is (…) that of predation”. (OJ)
Cédric Durand. Techno-féodalisme – Critique de l’économie numérique. Zones. Éditions La Découverte. ISBN: 978-2-35522-115-6. 254 pages. €18,00
Freedom of Expression and the Internet
In this work, Wolfgang Benedek and Matthias Kettemann provide us with a reminder of what the freedom of expression actually is, including in the exercise of freedom of opinion and press freedom, artistic freedom and access to the Internet as a right, taking the European Convention of Human Rights and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights as a basis. It also touches upon related rights such as the right of association, the right education and access to knowledge.
The authors stress that the freedom of expression can be covered by restrictions provided for by the law as long as they are justified by a legitimate objective that is proportionate to the objective sought. In theory, the freedom of expression online is protected in the same way as it is off-line. However, the specific nature of the Internet (its multiplying effect, the ubiquity of the information published and the fact that it cannot be removed) must be taken into account when analysing such restrictions. If the need to protect children has been fully recognised by the case-law of the Court, the fight against hate speech continues to be shaped by the cultural and religious sensitivities of the states.
The authors stress that the social media do not faithfully mirror society, as a handful of actors produce the vast majority of Internet content. Media producers attempting strategically to provide disinformation are particularly active. This explains the perception that conspiracy theories are so well accepted (they are not) or that everybody is attractive, eats gourmet food and is on holiday all the time (they are not). Likewise, the number of likes, shares, followers or comments is no guarantee of a high degree of popularity. These data measure views and can easily be manipulated by purchasing followers, for instance, the authors note, going on to stress that suggestions generated by algorithms are never neutral, but serve the purposes assigned to them by the economic actors that are the platforms. If the states have a duty to respect and protect human rights, private-sector companies also have growing obligations towards their users, the authors note, calling for the development of an inclusive, people-centred information society that fully respects human rights. (OJ)
Wolfgang Benedek and Matthias C. Kettemann. Freedom of Expression and the Internet. Updated and revised 2nd edition. Council of Europe Publishing (http://book.coe.int ). ISBN: 978-92-871-9023-9. 236 pages. €29,00